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Don’t miss this moment

I was in the stands along with other long-suffering parents. We were all there for a T-Ball game with kids who are just a little young for Little League. It’s a chance for them to get out run around and get dirty. But for the parents, you know the drill. It’s kind of like baseball with four bases and nine players on a team. But that’s where the similarity ends. The ball is a whiffle and it’s stroked off a Tee. No one ever gets out. First team to 15 … or is it 30, wins. These games seem like they never end.

But meanwhile the kids are having a blast and that’s what most important – or so we say to each other.

The parents bond over their time, their shared suffering. At the end of the game everyone smiles, the kids get popsicles and compare grass burns.

But there was one game,I missed the moment. My son was at bat and I was talking to a friend about a real baseball game, or work, or the weather. I don’t remember, but I wasn’t interested in this “sport”. My son’s at bat and his subsequent mad dash to first base was the cause of much cheering from his teammates. But all that mattered was what I thought. He glanced up in the stands to catch my face, my cheering. And I had missed the whole achievement because I wasn’t paying attention.

Life is total time continuum. The 70 years or so that I’ll live make up the sum of my days. But what marks life as important are really just a few moments in time. A first kiss. The first glance at an ocean overlook. A high school diploma. A baby’s first breath. A daughter at the end of aisle. We can all remember those singular seconds that changed our lives, that directed our future.

There are other moments, singular minutes that should have meant something, but they passed me by because I was busy, or distracted, or disinterested. By the missing the moment, I missed the opportunity.

And God moves in my life – giving me refreshment, or wisdom, or encouragement. But I often miss the moment of His interaction because I am too concerned over my bruised and bloody past, or too worried about my uncertain future. I miss the present blessing by missing the moment.

When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he was sad because they missed the opportunity to turn and embrace their King, because they missed the moment of his appearance. They were visited by their Saviour, but they did not know it. He was weeping over the tragedy of a lost opportunity.

Does He weep over me, because I’ve missed the moments of His blessing? Is He sad because I won’t let go and let Him bless me?

Am I missing the moment?

Many thanks to Tony Graffam of Connecting Place church in Denver for the inspired preaching on this topic. It was a moment to share the launch last week.

16 thoughts on “Don’t miss this moment”

My grandson has played T-ball the past two summers. he is a hoot. Once he slid head first into home plate. He loves baseball. His dream is play professionally. At this age he is ahead of the others in batting and throwing and sliding and getting dirty. i don’t want to miss those moments. I also don’t want to miss God’s moments in my life.

Ouch, letting the pain of the past or fretting over the future cause us to miss God or life events in this present moment. I believe I have lived this. Thanks for the reminder to wake up and be aware of His blessings.

Bless you for sharing this, and being honest about the lost moments. I write often about slowing down and giving our loved ones our attention, not because WHAT they are doing is interesting to us, but because WHO they are is precious to us!

Oh man… This reminds me of how often I’ve missed the magical moments in life that are the only real treasures. I remember speeding thinking I could more done than I actually could the day of our youngest daughter’s first cross country race. I missed it. Thanks for the reminder, not sure if we can ever get too many of them in this distracting life.

This is lovely, David. And a constant struggle for me. . . to pay attention to the moment and not lose it to my phone or my computer or even to my daydreams. Thanks for the good reminder. (Glad you enjoyed your sojourn in the northern part of our state. :>)

I lost a number of years in my sons’ lives. I cannot get them back, and no matter how much I beat myself up over having missed some moments, I did not miss some of the critical ones. I still have good relationships with them all – but when I stepped away from their lives, it wasn’t because I had to take a call.

I’ve lived long enough now to see the oldest and the middle ones join the USMC; I was there for the graduation ceremonies both times. I had my heart in my throat – ever so briefly, but nonetheless – when they both did a tour in Iraq, and again when the middle one went on a tour of Afghanistan. I was able to see them after cancer – and see both a grandson and a granddaughter enter the world.

God is the great redeemer – He has redeemed me, my relationship with my ex-wife and her family, and my sons. Best of all, He is still at work in all of our lives – else why would I be responding to a post on a blog with the name this one holds?

I’ve thought about this a lot. Sometimes we’re so eager to force the future into the shape we want that we miss our present opportunities. That’s not actually the biblical model. The biblical idea of redeeming the time implies looking for opportunities and pouncing on them.